Although six months earlier people were telling New Zealand's Datsuns to give up, by mid-2002 London's music press was hailing them as "genius." By then the Datsuns had already been playing their brand of garage rock for six years, ever since they met at school in Cambridge and formed a band called Trinket.
Back in 1997, as Trinket, they won the local radio station's Battle of the Bands. The following year, now called The Datsuns, they won again. In the years that followed the group released only a handful of singles, all on vinyl and all on their own record label, Hell Squad Records. While beloved of student radio and known for their live Who-like performances, they were a relatively unknown group even at home.
The Datsuns first debuted in the Radioscope NZ Music Airplay Top 10 on 27 October 2002 with the song In Love. There are seven entries by The Datsuns in the charts with two reaching Number One.
Chart placings by The Datsuns: